“Napoleon I was in the habit of saying that, in fighting a battle, he so ordered matters as to have seventy chances out of a hundred in his favour; he left the rest to Fate.  Ah! brave people, life is a battle, but the French of to-day will not risk anything.  They are the most honest, the least romantic of men, and I regret it.  Read Antoinette this passage of my letter.  Our young people think that they have a right to the paternal fortune; they consider that their father is wanting in his duty if he does not leave them a settled position, a certain future.  Their second preconceived notion is that they must find a wife who will bring them as much at least as they have to offer her.  I have so much, you have so much—­we are evidently created for each other; let us marry.  All this is deplorable.  I like better to hear of the young American who only expects from his parents the education necessary for a man to make his way; he has his tools given to him and the method of using them, but not a sou.  You have learned to swim, my friend—­swim.  After that he marries, most frequently a woman who has nothing, and who loves to spend money.  May the God Dollar protect him! he will gaily make an opening for himself in life, and his wife will give him ten children, who will follow the same course as their father.  Where it is customary for hunger to marry thirst, there are happy marriages, and a hardy race of people.  In all conscience, am I not romantic enough?

“Let me consider another case.  Take a man who has fortune:  he profits thereby to consult his heart only, and offer his name and revenues to the woman he loves and who has no dower.  I clap my hands, I think it the best of examples, and I regret that it is so seldom practised among us.  In France princes never are seen marrying shepherdesses; on the contrary, one too often sees penniless sons-in-law carrying off heiresses, and that is precisely the most objectionable case.  In a romance, or at the theatre, the poor young man who marries a million is a very noble person; in life it is different.  Not if the poor young man had a profession or a trade, if he could procure by his own work a sufficient income to render him independent of his wife; but if he submit to be dependent on her, if he expect from her his daily bread, to roll in her carriage, to ask her for the expenses of his toilet, for his pocket-money, and perhaps for sundry questionable outlays—­frankly, this young man lacks pride; and what is a man who has no pride?  Besides, what surety is there that in marrying it is, indeed, the woman he is in love with and not the dower?  Who assures me that Count Abel Larinski?—­I name no one, personalities are odious, and I own there are exceptions. Dieu, how rare they are!  If I were Antoinette, I would love the poor, but in their own interest.  I would not marry them.  The interest of the whole human race is at stake.  Beggars are inventive; let them have their own way to make, and they will be sure